Why the masks?
Shall I tell you the inside reasons or the outside ones?
My brother deals in security clearances. My sister works with birth, but her former artworks were all about masks. And I chose to make and design costumes-disguises- for a profession. What does that tell you?
And I’ve already talked about how costumes fascinated me. The power that comes with changing your outside appearance. What I’ve come to know is how the disguises we wear tell more about ourselves than we might want the outside world to know. The fact that we choose to wear our masks is enough.
We all wear masks. Some of them are more obvious, and some of them are more interesting.
But what do we learn from masks? Ask any actor, performer, lecturer or teacher. We can put on any one we like. They lift us up and free us to become ourselves. Even those parts of ourselves we’re not as proud of. Wearing a mask is liberating.
The masks I make are flexible and comfortable. So many of the ones I’ve worn (both physical and psychological) are not. In these, the leather forms itself to the face beneath. It accents the eyes and calls attention to the mouth, so that what you see and say become instantly more important. You become both mysterious and bold wearing them.
And in them, I am the superpower I’ve always wanted to be.
You can be that too.
Glamour to Deadly Mask
